Lessons From the Fake New York Times Wikileaks Op-ed

On Sunday July 29th a fake NYT op-ed from Bill Keller appeared online and within hours had spread like wildfire across Twitter, including being retweeted by NYT staff. Below is a recap of what happened, and a look at some of the lessons this episode suggests about digital literacy and verification.

Below is a link to the fake op-ed. The page is designed just like a New York Times page, but you'll notice that the URL is wrong. The word "opinion" precedes the "nytimes.com" - the real URL for NYT opinion pages is: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html…. Many phishing websites use words, preceding the "official" URL as a way to spoof websites and mislead people. The fake website was incredibly intricate and well done, which helped the op-ed spread quickly.

[Update: Wikileaks is now taking credit for the fake op-ed: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/229660297655382016…. "Yes. We admit it. WikiLeaks (Assange & co) and our great supporters where (sic) behind the successful NYTimes banking blockade hoax on @nytkeller." h/t to Ernie Smith at ShortFormBlog for tipping me off to this news]

It's unclear how long this webpage will stay live, so below is a screenshot.